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I think we all have been a little negative on the online requirement and rightfully so, but their is an up side. If you have a console where everyone is guaranteed to have it hooked up to the internet, then you can finally make multiplayer games that are just multiplayer. Right now, anyone who want's to base their game about co-op, or any form of online component has to deal with the fact that a very very small minority of console owners actually plug their console into an Ethernet port . Even games like borderlands the vast majority play it solo. When your working with a customer base that is already plugged into the internet, you can finally have the all of your players playing your co-op games the way you intended them to be played.

Silver linings right?

nomotog wrote:
I think we all have been a little negative on the online requirement and rightfully so, but their is an up side. If you have a console where everyone is guaranteed to have it hooked up to the internet, then you can finally make multiplayer games that are just multiplayer. Right now, anyone who want's to base their game about co-op, or any form of online component has to deal with the fact that a very very small minority of console owners actually plug their console into an Ethernet port . Even games like borderlands the vast majority play it solo. When your working with a customer base that is already plugged into the internet, you can finally have the all of your players playing your co-op games the way you intended them to be played.

Silver linings right?

There already exist multiplayer only games on current consoles, both downloadable and retail, with no single player or coop. I wouldn't call a very small minority of console owners plugging in at least on the xbox side if 46 million have done it out of 75 million sold (at least from the date of the article below). Anecdotaly, every person I've known in real life who owns an xbox has it plugged in to broadband internet (although not all opt to pay for gold). Obviously the true answer is much more nuanced (gold vs silver, people who plugged in once or only yearly to update dashboards, etc) but I'd hazard a guess that at least on the 360 side that it's not a "very very small minority" and the xbox demographic is what this thread is focused on.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/xbox-360-sales-and-xbox-live-membership-numbers-give-microsoft-a-compelling-defense-for-the-always-online-next-xbox/

The one truely good thing I can say about the xbone without conditions is that the standard harddrive is coming back. Microsoft had a standard harddrive in the original xbox but got rid of it in the 360. Game makers had to make sure for the first several years that their games worked without any sort of storage other than the paltry 64mb memory card and that definitely held them back in terms of capability. Having a permanent form of storage will also help with the relatively long load times of blu ray drives as well.

Phone checkin huh?

Well, I'm sure my iphone can handle that if my internet goes down or I'm at a lan party.

Not that my internet fails very much, and never for 24 hours unless our power goes out (and admittedly that happened once).

This is worth the read about the DRM stuff

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-xbox-engineer-explains-drm-and-microsofts-xbox-one-intentions

 pities2004 wrote:
This is worth the read about the DRM stuff

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-xbox-engineer-explains-drm-and-microsofts-xbox-one-intentions

I fething HATED Steam when it first came out, and it was a nightmare to get Halflife 2 to work.

Now I love it and use it for all my PC gaming.

I can see where they are coming from.

Steam is vastly improved compared to what it is, but then again they aren't selling me games for £50 that are completed in 5 hours...

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Steam is vastly improved compared to what it is, but then again they aren't selling me games for £50 that are completed in 5 hours...

Well it sounds like they want to sell them for less if things go well.

 daedalus-templarius wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Steam is vastly improved compared to what it is, but then again they aren't selling me games for £50 that are completed in 5 hours...

Well it sounds like they want to sell them for less if things go well.

That's a very large if, with no guarantees of any kind that they will if things do go well. If they really wanted to kill gamestop, they could have just sold their games direct to hard drive/account for less than the hard copy.

Fortunately, I'll still have a wallet if they decide to offer steam-like savings years from now.

 xole wrote:

 daedalus-templarius wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Steam is vastly improved compared to what it is, but then again they aren't selling me games for £50 that are completed in 5 hours...

Well it sounds like they want to sell them for less if things go well.

That's a very large if, with no guarantees of any kind that they will if things do go well. If they really wanted to kill gamestop, they could have just sold their games direct to hard drive/account for less than the hard copy.

Fortunately, I'll still have a wallet if they decide to offer steam-like savings years from now.

There's a very big point made in that big posting though: places like Wal-Mart, Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy are very heavily entrenched in the market for video games. You probably see more sales via Amazon than GameStop at this point but there's no real denying that as long as a physical disc is used(which does still allow for trade-in/resale/swapping to friends) you'll have to deal with retail chains having a bit more power than the publishers/developers.

They HAVE to play nice with retailers, there is literally no way around it.

If they went full digital, they'd get a ton of pushback about even putting the consoles on the shelves I imagine. They just can't do it, even if we want them to.

At least, not yet.

They already do digital sales on 360 for games, just not nearly as often as stuff like Steam. Some of the deals are pretty good actually.

Okay.. you know, if this stays, I'm not buying the thing, ever.

http://www.ibtimes.com/xbox-one-users-must-waive-right-class-action-suits-against-microsoft-experts-weigh-1306797#

Have fun with that.

I think the more they try to make the 24 hr check seem like a minor deal the more I'm starting to hate them for doing it. "Think in kilobytes, not megabytes" they say, but if it's such a small and insignificant thing why do we even need it in the first place other than to be an annoyance?

I'm curious if any enterprising technicians will ever figure out a way to crack open the case and screw with the inner settings in a way that makes the suicide check disappear.

Sort of like Sim City.

 Soladrin wrote:
Okay.. you know, if this stays, I'm not buying the thing, ever.

http://www.ibtimes.com/xbox-one-users-must-waive-right-class-action-suits-against-microsoft-experts-weigh-1306797#

Have fun with that.

Heh, good luck with that in the UK Microsoft.

It's almost like they WANT to shoot themselves in the foot...

Oh God...




The Doritos Pope would look proudly upon this with his dead eyes...

Well if they didn't restrict your ability to sue, then they might actually be held responsible on release day when the servers don't work.

...Wow...

 Fafnir wrote:


...Wow...

Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Necroshea wrote:
I think the more they try to make the 24 hr check seem like a minor deal the more I'm starting to hate them for doing it. "Think in kilobytes, not megabytes" they say, but if it's such a small and insignificant thing why do we even need it in the first place other than to be an annoyance?

That's a question for the game publishers. They most likely want some form of online drm. The 24 hour thing is for our convenience (as far as i understood); without it you would have to connect every time you want to play and not just once every 24h. I doubt the other gaming platforms have less drm.

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

'Cept this appears to apply to every game you have, including the ones you own physical copies of. Steam can ban me, but I can still play Half-Life 2 without connecting to them.

 Minx wrote:
That's a question for the game publishers. They most likely want some form of online drm. The 24 hour thing is for our convenience (as far as i understood); without it you would have to connect every time you want to play and not just once every 24h. I doubt the other gaming platforms have less drm.

Yeah, 'cause needing to connect and re-authenticate every day when you're playing completely offline single player games sure is "convenient".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

'Cept this appears to apply to every game you have, including the ones you own physical copies of. Steam can ban me, but I can still play Half-Life 2 without connecting to them.

But nowadays you don't own physical copies any more. You get a licence (with attached agreement and legal fine print) that can be revoked following the rules you agree to prior to using said licence.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Minx wrote:
That's a question for the game publishers. They most likely want some form of online drm. The 24 hour thing is for our convenience (as far as i understood); without it you would have to connect every time you want to play and not just once every 24h. I doubt the other gaming platforms have less drm.

Yeah, 'cause needing to connect and re-authenticate every day when you're playing completely offline single player games sure is "convenient".

I assumed that every new and expensive game will have some form of online drm check regardless of single- or multi-player mode. But perhaps that is not true yet and some publishers still use physical discs as some primitive drm or copy protection scheme. In my defense i haven't bought a game on a physical medium in years and instead got them all via steam, etc.

Whelp.



Gotta love cameras right?

 Minx wrote:

Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

Nope. Even if your Steam account is banned, you have full access to your game. Hell, if it doesn't actually use your Steam account for multiplayer, you can still even play online.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Minx wrote:

Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

Nope. Even if your Steam account is banned, you have full access to your game. Hell, if it doesn't actually use your Steam account for multiplayer, you can still even play online.

Looking through my steam folder it seems you are right. My apologies then. Although i suspect it won't be long until the larger publishers go the route of online licence servers for the piracy protection.

 Minx wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

'Cept this appears to apply to every game you have, including the ones you own physical copies of. Steam can ban me, but I can still play Half-Life 2 without connecting to them.

But nowadays you don't own physical copies any more. You get a licence (with attached agreement and legal fine print) that can be revoked following the rules you agree to prior to using said licence.

Really? Cause I'm pretty sure I own all of my 360 games in physical form. I'm not renting a license from anybody, those are my games.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

 Minx wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

'Cept this appears to apply to every game you have, including the ones you own physical copies of. Steam can ban me, but I can still play Half-Life 2 without connecting to them.

But nowadays you don't own physical copies any more. You get a licence (with attached agreement and legal fine print) that can be revoked following the rules you agree to prior to using said licence.

Really? Cause I'm pretty sure I own all of my 360 games in physical form. I'm not renting a license from anybody, those are my games.

It seems i extrapolated erroneously from online bought licences on steam. My apologies.

You're referring to EULA's, and they can unenforceable in certain territories.

 pities2004 wrote:
This is worth the read about the DRM stuff

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-xbox-engineer-explains-drm-and-microsofts-xbox-one-intentions

I would be willing to believe that if the price stayed the same, instead of jumping at LEAST $30 in the transition....

 Slarg232 wrote:

 pities2004 wrote:
This is worth the read about the DRM stuff

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-xbox-engineer-explains-drm-and-microsofts-xbox-one-intentions

I would be willing to believe that if the price stayed the same, instead of jumping at LEAST $30 in the transition....

I don't think we're reading the same price lists.
Look at the US prices. They're staying the same or roughly the same(some games are listed as $59.96 on Amazon rather than $59.99).

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

And that makes it okay?

That's a question for the game publishers. They most likely want some form of online drm. The 24 hour thing is for our convenience (as far as i understood); without it you would have to connect every time you want to play and not just once every 24h. I doubt the other gaming platforms have less drm.

You should really reread this. 'Our convenience' is served by inconveniencing us how?

Also consoles had less DRM. Until now. And again, so what if other platforms have it? The PC community has done little more than complain about DRM for years because it sucks. Some countries don't assure due process. Would you support the US government completely suspending it?

 LordofHats wrote:

 Minx wrote:
Isn't that how Steam and any other online retailer, where you don't just buy a serial but get a licence bound to your shop account, handle it?

And that makes it okay?

That's a question for the game publishers. They most likely want some form of online drm. The 24 hour thing is for our convenience (as far as i understood); without it you would have to connect every time you want to play and not just once every 24h. I doubt the other gaming platforms have less drm.

You should really reread this. 'Our convenience' is served by inconveniencing us how?

Also consoles had less DRM. Until now. And again, so what if other platforms have it? The PC community has done little more than complain about DRM for years because it sucks. Some countries don't assure due process. Would you support the US government completely suspending it?

As a non american, yes.

But honestly, yeah, I really don't give two gaks about the drm and all that. It's the kinect that ruins it.